TEN DAYS by Jenna Mills

Author:Jenna Mills [Mills, Jenna]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2018-08-30T16:00:00+00:00

The Room

Behind me, the house lay in its death throes. In front of me, in the room at the end of the hall, the house lived. A massive poster bed dominated the sanctuary of burgundy walls and a hardwood floor, plush white bedding offsetting the dark hue of the walnut furniture. An armoire and a triple dresser, an antique mirror and an antique settee, curtains of a thick grey velvet against the walls, a marble fireplace on the opposite wall.

I stepped forward, onto the plush oriental rug and looked from the ornately-framed art to the top of the dresser, the beautiful gold candlesticks and empty mirrored tray, a single bottle of perfume.

So many questions hit me. Maybe Aidan had staged the room for one of his books. Maybe it was research. Or maybe the opulence had nothing to do with him....

Beyond the dresser, a set of dark wood French doors stood closed. I should have left them that way. I should have turned and gone back to the room where Aidan left me. But I didn't. I didn't walk away. I walked forward, toward the doors, and pulled them open.

The bathroom was large, gorgeous, white marble and black accents, an elegant double vanity. Towels, thick and black and soft. And a tub, curved and freestanding and surrounded by tall taper candles.

I remember the exact second I discovered I wasn't alone. I remember the exact second the silence broke, and reality poured in. I had one of the plush black towels in my hands as I leaned over to touch the porcelain. My back was to the door. I never heard him approach. I never sensed him in anyway.

Until he said my name.

I hung there, there in the darkness lit by nothing more than my dying votive, with my hand to the smooth edge of the tub, not sure why my throat suddenly felt tight.

"What are you doing?" And then he was there, in the bathroom with me, turning me, turning me toward him, and exposing me to the most scorched earth eyes I'd ever seen. They were dark and they were violent, driving home the absolute lack of color to his face. Even there in the shadows, I saw the starkly-carved lines, lines that for one of the few times since I walked through his front door five days before, screamed uncertainty. It was only a flash, only a second, like a vicious, momentary streak of lightning across the dead of the night sky, but during it, Aidan looked like he had no idea what to say or do.

"What?" I asked. "Why are you looking at me like that?"

I thought he might ask like how. That's what Aidan Cross did when he didn't want to answer a question. He threw it back.

But I had no idea how to describe the nightmare I saw glittering in his expression, the hell as if he was there but not there, looking at me, but not seeing. Not me anyway. If he hadn't said my name.

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